Video-Making Reflection

An experience it was.

Starting last Wednesday night, Emily and I had a good time figuring out what our video focus was going to be, then breaking down each scene. It was fun determining the different shots we wanted to get our point across.

When Wednesday rolled around, and it was time to shot our video, I think we did well getting the shots we wanted. It took us practically no time at all to shoot. However, had we started shooting even 30 to 45 minutes earlier, we would have had more time to work on putting the actual video together. Because we took extra footage, we had plenty to pick from in order to get the perfect clip for our video. This will be something that I emphasize to my classes when I create videos - "Get more footage than you think you need, just to make sure you get the exact shot you want."

Emily and I ran across a problem when creating our second slide. The text wasn't showing up the way we wanted it to, even set as a basic appearance. We decided that we had more important clips to work on, and so continued with our project. In the end, the text showed up the way we didn't want it to, however, the voice-over that read the actual text made it work well enough. Had we had more time, we probably would have figured it out.

Something else that I will stress to my class, is to pick transitions between clips as you go; don't wait until the end to pick them. Emily and I thought we would get the meat (video clips, audio clips, text) of our video together first, before we worried about which transition we wanted to use in the whole video. Bad idea. Because we waited until the end, the timing of all of our video got off. Making sure to add transitions as you go is the way to go! Again, had we had more time, we would have been able to readjust all of our clips, audio, and text to work best with our newly added transitions.

When creating videos with my own class, I would make sure that students know they can only have one string of audio in addition to the video audio. Emily and I decided to have each video participant speak over their actual video. This allowed for the action to take place without it being heard. However, this created a problem, because we couldn't add background music throughout the video itself. The only other audio we had space to add was the participants voices explaining what they were doing at the time the video was taken. With more time, we probably could have added music clips between each video shot after the audio was finished; however, this may have made the videos' audio seem too full and not flow.

The biggest thing I brought away from this project, was the timing. As a teacher, I will need to give my students plenty of time for planning, plenty of time for shooting, and plenty of time for putting the video together. Emily and I had lots of questions, and I know that students -most of whom have probably never had video-making experience- will have lots of questions themselves.

Overall, making the video was a fun experience, and I would definitely like to do it with my own class!